The Explorer by James Smythe Page A

while, taking them in. My eyes keep flitting to myself, to the scowl that I sleep with. Elena always told me that, that I looked angry when I slept. (‘Like you’re planning vengeance,’ she would joke.) I wonder what it is that I’m so angry about at that moment; what my dreams are of.
    In the changing room I look at myself in the mirror for the first time since I woke up. I am a wreck; it takes me seconds to come to terms with what I’m seeing, because it’s wrong. I don’t recognize this face; it’s so thin and drawn, weak and loose and grey in the skin. My face has pockmarks, shaving scars, scars from what looks like acne and scratches, as thin as blades of grass. I examine my chest: marks, more slight scars, faded but still prominent, and every single rib there outlined, jutting, trying to punch their way out of my white, almost translucent skin. My arms are a picture of self-harm, scratched-in scars from my wrist to my elbow on my right arm, nearly as many on the left. I’m covered in them. In my mouth, my gums have drawn themselves back, exposing yellow and brown teeth that cling desperately to the inside of my jaw. At the back, two or three teeth are missing; my breath reeks, even to me. I shake, again, poking at myself. This is scarier than any film I’ve ever seen, any nightmare I’ve ever had, because it feels real; that sheen of it being fake – false – is gone, and I’m left with myself: a fragile, broken shell.
    ‘Was this the crash? The explosion? Did that do all of this? What the fuck has happened to me?’ I ask aloud, my voice – harsh, like I’m not used to speaking – cracking into tears, but there’s no reply. I didn’t expect there to be.
    Day two was spent outlining exactly how the trip was to work: what everybody’s individual roles were. I conducted interviews with the crew as they worked, or as they sat for me, like this was a TV show. Every day I beamed a broadcast back; there was a slot reserved on the BBC, sold to hundreds of other channels the world over, where they would watch the mini-documentary each day. It was basically edits of the interviews (and after a while I would start interviewing for single sentences or sound bites only, because they were all that ever made it into our miniature documentaries) and some shots of the crew working, or of the space around us – from the Bubble, or, on rare occasion, taken out on a walk. It was the first time that they had the tech to receive these broadcasts, at least during the early part of our trip, so that was part of the job. (To some extent, the money from the sales of the broadcasts funded part of the trip: DARPA sold the rights, and they pocketed the profits. It probably paid for some of the fuel, or the hull, or us.) I wrote everything down, because after this, it would become the article. I wrote at the computer – though it was harder than it ought to have been, because of the microgravity, because being strapped to a stool wasn’t comfortable, because the keys seemed to be harder to press than at home, not having their usual give as I tapped at them. Day two was when I established those things. Now, here, I listen to the me that’s out there asking the questions I barely remember asking, that now, in hindsight, sound so banal.
    ‘What made you want to become an astronaut?’ I ask Guy.
    ‘No, never wanted that. I wanted to be an explorer,’ he corrects.
    ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘What made you want to become an explorer?’
    ‘Really? That’s your first question?’ He laughs at the camera, at me, because he sees something intrinsically funny in all of this. That was Guy. ‘I mean, Jesus, who wouldn’t?’ That was the clip from him that went into the first broadcast back; he looked so happy when he said it. I knew it was a self-satisfied pleasure, but it played as excitement.
    I listen as the other me delivers a fake eulogy for Arlen, a second speech especially for the camera, standing in front of the cockpit so